Shore Lore: Dollars and scents in Eastham

By Don Wilding

Saturday

May 5, 2018 at 7:35 AM

Cape Cod certainly has its share of different scents and aromas drifting through the air. There’s everything from the pungent smell of low tide to automobile exhaust on Route 6, but there’s one that isn’t always associated with our fair peninsula.

That fragrance belongs to none other than one of our favorite nocturnal visitors, the skunk.

Eastham is one such place where the skunk dwells, and over the years, they’ve provided both dollars and “scents,” if you will, in a variety of ways.

Let’s start with the “scents.”

One of the great tales came from the first decade of the 20th century, involving a youngster named Bernard Collins, who would go on to become a selectman and noted citizen of the town.

Bernie and his father, Lewis Collins, later built the cottage colony that’s now known as Collins Cove, next to Town Cove and the Eastham Rotary.

However, young Bernie’s chance meeting with a skunk got him into a little bit of trouble one night.

Lewis was the No. 1 surfman at the Nauset Lifesaving Station, and the Collins family lived in a house only a few steps away. Bernie spent most of his time in the station, and even assisted his father with many shipwreck rescues. He was often invited to visit the keeper, Alonzo Bearse, and his wife, in their apartment there.

Now, keep in mind that the Bearses also had a cat.

One night, Bernie was heading over to the station, and spotted the cat outdoors, so the youngster opened the Bearses’ door to let it in.

“I said, ‘Nice kitty,’ patted it, picked it up, go up to the house, put it in. When I threw it in, it sprayed everything.”

Bernie wasn’t too popular with his father and the station personnel after that, resulting in “the worse whaling I ever got.”

“They couldn’t get the smell out of there — even out of the dining room of the Coast Guard station,” he recalled.

A-SKUNKING WE WILL GO …

While Bernie Collins and his skunk contributed a few “scents” to Eastham lore, there was another longtime resident who pulled in a few dollars with skunks. Charlie Escobar, who, with his dog, would track them down on foot and then sell the pelts.

Escobar would utilize a flashlight, a burlap bag, a change of clothes, and whoever he could enlist as an assistant, according to the late Don Sparrow in his 1999 book, “Growing Up on Cape Cod.”

“Charlie was absolutely fearless when moving in on a live capture, or for the kill,” Sparrow wrote. “As a result, an unmistakable aroma clung to him during the entire skunking season.”

Escobar reported that the skunk meat “tasted very much like chicken,” and that many Cape Codders valued grease from the fat for medicinal purposes. Sparrow noted that “Boston furriers or itinerant brokers” would buy the pelts. He estimated that Escobar gathered as many as 150 pelts in any given year.

“Unpleasant to many … (but) it was a welcome odor, the smell of money,” Sparrow recalled. “Selling skunk hides helped to keep many of us solvent during the fall and winter months.”

Don Wilding, a writer and public speaker on Cape Cod lore, can be reached via email at donwilding@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter at @WildingsCapeCod and on Facebook at @donwildingscapecod. Shore Lore appears weekly.